“You Shall Not Commit Adultery” (Part 4)
[Editor’s Note: This article continues with 25 reasons not to commit adultery; it was first published in Biblical Ethics, edited by Terry Hightower for the 1992 Shenandoah Lectures, pages 262-281.]
15. Committing adultery violates our wedding vows. When two people agree to get married, they promise to forsake all others, to reserve themselves for each other (sexually), and to be faithful until God by death shall separate them, according to God’s holy ordinances. The Romans symbolized the sexual purity involved in marriage by the bride presenting to her husband on the wedding day “fire and water: signifying that as fire refines, and water cleanses, she would live with her husband in chastity and sincerity” (Watson 153).
Marriage is and always has been a covenant. In the Book of Malachi, God’s complaint against His people is that some had dealt treacherously against their wives. They had put away their wives, though married for years, and married foreign women. “I hate divorce!” God says (and subsequent unlawful remarriage) (Mal. 2:14-16).
In Ezra’s day, the Israelites were forced to put away their foreign wives and children. They further had to present a ram of the flock as a trespass offering because they stood guilty before God (Ezra 10:19, 44).
Since God joins a man and woman together (Matt. 19:6), and since they do make a commitment to each other in His sight (Gen. 2:24), He is a witness against them when they violate the vows they have exchanged (Mal. 2:14). Thus, adultery becomes a multi-faceted sin: it’s an expression of lust and a violation of one’s vows. Furthermore, “it is the highest sort of theft” (Watson 155) because a person steals that which belongs to another.
16. The adulterer gives away his honor and strength (Prov. 5:9; 31:3). He becomes a divided person: he cannot give God His best, since he is rebelling against Him; nor can his relationship with his wife be what it ought to be since he is sharing himself with another.
[Additional thought not in the original manuscript: All of the preachers mentioned at the outset who were guilty of this sin have been forced to play the hypocrite. When they stand before God’s people and preach, they must condemn adultery as the Scriptures do. (What would happen if they said, “Adultery may not be as bad as we have been led to believe”? or “There may be some instances in which adultery can be justified”?) Preaching against adultery, which they must, makes them self-condemned, a truly unenviable position to be in.]
17. The life of an adulterer is costly. One is to shun this sin “lest aliens be filled with your wealth, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner” (Prov. 5:10). The adulterer may become so poverty-stricken that “he is reduced to a crust of bread” (Prov. 6:26). Mistresses expect gifts from their “sugar daddies”—or hush money.
18. The adulterer gives his “years to the cruel one” (Prov. 5:9), who could refer to the woman herself or her husband. But the most cruel of all is Satan, who promises much pleasure in sin, which there is—but never enough to offset all of the consequences this chapter has been exploring. The devil is a cruel taskmaster to addict us to that which condemns us. Whenever a person contemplates adultery, he ought to realize that he is enlisting in Satan’s service and will be his subject forever, unless (like the prodigal son) he manages to come to himself and break free.
19. The adulterer must learn to deny reality. He or she stands guilty—without question: the Scriptures could not be plainer. But no one wants to think of himself or herself as someone guilty of sin, condemned to hell; so, the enslaved soul begins to find ways to justify and excuse the inordinate affections. “My husband doesn’t really care about me—even his hobby is more important.” “My wife would probably prefer me having this affair, since she doesn’t seem to enjoy a sexual relationship anyway.” Immoral people frequently conclude: “I have done no wickedness” (Prov. 30:20). No rationale justifies sin; the commandment still reads: “You shall not commit adultery.”
Probably no greater attempts to justify adultery have been offered than the ones made on behalf of those who unlawfully divorce and “marry” another. Remember, Jesus Himself gave this definition. People want that new mate so badly that sometimes they even talk themselves into thinking that their divorce was Scriptural. Everyone knows the individual was committing adultery before the divorce, but now he or she denies it. Remarkably, this person insists that everything that was done met God’s standards; self-deceit is the only way some can get their consciences to quit accusing them.
20. Other sexual partners may forever haunt a marriage (which is true whether it results from fornication or adultery). Suppose that one repents of a relationship with an old “lover.” Will he or she likewise forget their intimacies? Barry Manilow confides, concerning a former lover, “All I could taste was love the way we made it,” in the song, “Looks Like We Made It,” which depicts the struggle involved in forgetting the past. No married couple needs the specter of a past lover marring their lives; sexual purity prior to and in marriage will eliminate the problem of sexual comparisons.
21. The person who succeeds in finding additional sexual partners might wonder who has blessed him with such “luck.” Is he achieving what he wants because God has given up on him? “The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit: he who is abhorred of the Lord will fall there” (Prov. 22:14). We know from Romans 1 that when a person rejects God, God gives them up, and they do even more evil than before.
22. Adultery pollutes both participants (1 Cor. 6:13-20; Prov. 23:27). The lengthier passage affirms that, although the body was designed for sexual experience, nevertheless there are also restrictions. A man is not to become one flesh with a harlot; therefore, he must flee fornication (including adultery) to avoid sinning against the Holy Spirit and himself. The harlot is “a common drain; whereas a believer’s body is a living temple” (Watson 156). The unflattering contrast is worth pondering.
23. Those who commit adultery do so needlessly. “God has provided a remedy to prevent it” (Watson 154). “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). Paul adds the instruction that neither is to “deprive one another” (1 Cor. 7:5). The one who commits adultery cannot justify himself on grounds of an unwilling mate; he remains guilty. But a mate who refuses (through one means or another) to render the proper affection due shall be guilty of being a stumbling block and disobeying the Word of God.
24. “Adultery debases a person; it makes him resemble the beasts” (Watson 155). As God describes the problem in Israel, adultery was not the absence of satisfaction at home; lust simply required additional sexual relationships elsewhere.
When I fed them to the full, then they committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in harlots’ houses. They were like well-fed lusty stallions; everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife (Jer. 5:7-8).
The avid adulterer may not be incapable of mental and spiritual pursuits, but his mind is dominated by fleshly desires.
25. This last reason offered to not commit adultery may offend someone who has transgressed, but God is the one who makes the point: to put it bluntly, “You’re stupid.” The Word of God says that those guilty of this sin are “devoid of understanding” (Prov. 7:7; cf. 9:16). It’s not a matter of ignorance—not knowing; it’s a matter of not paying heed to and using what one does know. Those who have repented of this sin usually acknowledge their foolishness; we need, however, to see it in this unflattering light before we are tempted to transgress.
Undergirding and permeating the 25 reasons (which tend to focus on the individual) is the fact that adultery disrupts and can destroy family life. People comment casually about their “exes,” and it is no longer uncommon to hear the word step in front of the name of a family member. Consider these rather forceful but true statements from the Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 20:14:
The wreck of homes which lust has made! The holy, loving refuge of childhood and youth desolated, and its very memory made a horror and anguish! (1:3:154). When a man…breaks the marriage vow; when a woman acquiesces in a crime thus perpetrated, it is murder aimed at the collective life of the family (1:3:158).
The home has always been considered the fundamental unit of society; in many civilizations the breakdown of the family has heralded the death of the nation. Perhaps when the act of adultery is being contemplated, we ought to remember that, besides affecting ourselves individually (and our relationship to God), we are also involving our family members and society as a whole—especially when we determine to destroy an existing home in order to live in an adulterous state.
How To Abstain From Adultery
First of all, we must do our best to remember the twenty-five reasons (or at least some of them) for not doing so, as listed above. Most of them have a basis in Scripture: the psalmist wrote, “Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Ps. 119:11). If we keep the catastrophic consequences of the sin of adultery in our minds, it may become an automatic reaction to shy away from it.
Next is the necessity of making a concentrated effort to flee. Run away from it. Escape! Act as though our very lives depends on it; it does. Paul’s advice to the Corinthians, as already noted, was to “flee fornication” (1 Cor. 6:18). Joseph had literally done so centuries earlier (Gen. 39:12), thus serving as an example for all of us. Solomon cautioned, “Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house” (Prov. 5:8).
Third, all must be careful about what is allowed in our thoughts. Men should avoid all contact with pornography because they respond readily to visual stimulation. Tom Holland correctly observed: “Immorality in uncontrolled passion burns across the country fueled by salacious television programs, books, magazines, and movies, leaving in ruins many young people, many homes, and many hopes and dreams” (Holland 328). We could now also warn of the sleazy lyrics and behavior of rock music and the “performers?” who flood the airwaves and MTV with outright vulgarity.
Women should avoid soap operas and unrealistic, romantic novels which may prompt them to think they’re not cared for properly. If a husband lacks feeling and tenderness, she should tell him—not seek someone else.
What and how we think about our marriage and our mate is all-important. In fact, everything that we keep in our thoughts is important (Prov. 4:24; Phil. 4:8).